Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Common Interests Homeless sleepover

i love the people that stand at the corner all day long with a sign saying "hungry, kids at home" or the bastids that make a poor kid sit there with them all day. i especially love it when 30year old men stand out there asking for money (dont appear homeless) with a sign saying "will work for food" when they are about two blocks from Home Depot where they can get all the work they want all day long. i guess standing on the corner is easier than digging ditches in the hot sun. i would be elbow to elbow with those illegals before i stand there and beg for handouts!

occassionally, we go to downtown LA's shopping districts to do some cheapo spending sprees. the infamous skid row is located right in the heart of the toy district where i used to buy my 1:18 scale die casts like crack (for wholesale prices ). anwywho, we'd park in a meter parking and come back an hour later to find some homeless guy standing next to our car. he says "ive been watching your car for you to make sure no one messed with it." and puts his hand out and asks for a few bucks. i smile and say thanks buddy and we get in the car. he is now getting close to my wife and keeps asking her for the money, she tells him to get lost. he gets in front of my suv and keeps asking, more aggressively. as i start to pull away he starts cussing and thumps my window. i grab the Club and am about to jump out when my wife tells me just to forget it and lets get outta here, seeing how his homeless buddies are about twenty feet away. i wonder just how much money they make doing that.

i remember some radio personalities did a morning stunt where they each dresssed like a down and out kinda person (not outright filthy) and stood at various LA onramps to hold "will work for food signs" to see how much money they could make. they each made over $100 for about two hours worth of "work". they then donated the money to a homeless shelter.

There's a guy who sits outside my former employment during the summer and sits inside during the winter. Yeah.. he's a hobo.. but how the hell do we know he's not a Vet with screws loose?

That's a longshot, but it is certainly possible. My former employer told him he can stay as long as he doesn't "mooch" and harrass the customers.

He's still weird. He'd stare at me while I did my job, and it made me want to punch him out in a hurry everytime I saw it!

I have a little trick I used to do that helped those that actually needed it, and pointed out the frauds quickly. Whenever I see someone with a sign saying "Hungry" or "Will work for food" I'd stop by McD's or BK and pick up 4 burgers or so, some fries, drink, whatever I could spare. Then I'd stop past em and offer it. They either took the food and were happy (and no longer hungry for that moment), or they'd get pissed and talk crap because they wanted cash, to which I'd always have a nice repsonse...

When I was in Indy for CF I came out from eating Mexican, all stuffed. There was a guy telling me how his car was broke down and he needed money to fix it. I laughed, and told him to take us to it, we're all car guys, we can getcha running again. He about [censored], and just finally walked off, empty handed.

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I remember a time when I was walking in downtown Chicago with about 7 women on a work related trip. Dude comes up to me and says man you must have some extra $ with all these ladies around you. I said yea I wish. They're typical and they took it all. He started cracking up and left me alone.

i used to work at peachtree center office complex which is dead center downtown atl business district. everyday it was a pia to leave the building for lunch or headed to the train because of the aggressive panhandlers. some of them moonlight as "city guides" who follow you from your cab or off the train right to your hotel or restaurant eventually ending their pitch with a plea for money. or they're just straight up beggars setting up shop outside the food places or hotels and accost people as they walk by. some of them are bold enough to wait inside the fast food places and wait for the cashier to give people change before asking. they sleep in restaurants too. many clients or potential customers at the time always mentioned it, it was rather embarrassing and annoying. i could definitely see how it hurts perception.

for downtown businesses it's about as bad as having roaches running around in your lobby or conference room.

i'm all for the panhandling ban and something needs to be done. but from what i've seen though it doesn't address the larger problem of what to do with these people. given the large majority of them are mental nutcases who need help, they have no where to go and the cities program for homeless is virtually non-existant. so i'm not sure if this is the right approach, as it currently stands i don't think it will solve the problem for long. they need to include some ideas on what to do with these people outside of gathering them all up and churning them into horse feed. something has to be done though.

I love how the third violation can result in a fine. LOL, are they going to have to panhandle some more to get the money to pay it

I like how they played the racism card in the article.

Around here, they've erected road signs saying "Panhandling is illegal!" (or something to that effect) on street corners where beggars commonly beg. Now they've got to stand beside those signs, or find new locations.

Boston is horrible with aggressive beggars, whereas Worcester has the creative storytellers.

Our city banned panhandling some time ago. The ban was prompted after several homeless guys got into a brawl near a prime location over a particular standing spot and a bicycle officer investigating a disturbance involving 2 homeless men under a bridge had to shoot one of the men after he advanced on the officer with a knife.